Gabapentin for nerve pain anyone?

I haven't used anything Pharma for my pain - and I'm starting to think this is foolish.
Someone posted on here that Dr.J (I think it was him) tries to get you functional while treating - ie sleep issues, pain..etc so you can still have a life while you treat.

I've managed with the muscle and joint pain...etc.but this nerve pain is relentless. I'm considering asking my GP for some Gabapentin.

What has been your experience with it.

Is it hard to come off it?

And if it masks the nerve issues, how do you gauge treatment?

I want to get back to work - I've been off now for over 3 years now.

I was put on Gabapentin by my PCP for shooting nerve pin at the start of my severe Lyme sx before starting treatment with an LLMD. I found it best to take a good dose at night before bedtime, which also helped my sleep better. Some folks get a real foggy hang-over effect and function poorly if taken during daytime.

I stopped taking it after 4 years or so when I started seeing sx improvements and preferred not to mask my remaining sx.

I've been on Gabapentin a few times - sometimes it helps me and sometimes it doesn't.

It seems to be that many people do get at least some help from it, at least for a while. The only way to know though is to try it. I encourage you to talk to your doc to try it.

As for masking the symptoms, I never really had it mask my nerve pain, but it lowered it to tolerable levels. It wasn't hard to still tell that I had symptoms.

Each time I weaned myself down from it, I did something similar to Purrrsiankitty - only I stretched it out over a longer period of time - I went down about 1 pill a week until I was down to only 1 pill, then I cut that in half. If I found that going down by a full pill was too much, I cut the pill that I was trying to eliminate in half and only went down a half a pill at a time from there.

madisongrrl said...
If your nerve issues are significant enough, it doesn't entirely mask them. It might make them tolerable. My skin still burns to the point where it can bring me to my knees on a bad day. I was on 3200 mg a day and now I'm down to 2400 mg since starting treatment.

Dr. J will put his patients with nerve pain on gabapentin due to pain and also to prevent patients' brain from "learning" pain....because that is piece of this as well. Sometimes when we have long term pain, your brain gets caught in a loop and can't let it go, even when you heal.

I've though about that and it does concern me.

Does it help with other nerve issues - shivering and vibrations?

I took the Neurontin form of it(generic), and I didn't like it. Not only did it not help, it made me feel weird. It was prescribed to take at bedtime.

You may like it, on the other hand.

Girlie said...

madisongrrl said...
If your nerve issues are significant enough, it doesn't entirely mask them. It might make them tolerable. My skin still burns to the point where it can bring me to my knees on a bad day. I was on 3200 mg a day and now I'm down to 2400 mg since starting treatment.

Dr. J will put his patients with nerve pain on gabapentin due to pain and also to prevent patients' brain from "learning" pain....because that is piece of this as well. Sometimes when we have long term pain, your brain gets caught in a loop and can't let it go, even when you heal.

I've though about that and it does concern me.

Does it help with other nerve issues - shivering and vibrations?

Gaba could help you with shivering and vibrations, but everyone reacts differently to it. Some people react better to Lycra or react better to the anti-depressant class of drugs that also work for nerve pain. It seems very trial and error.

PeteZa said...
Girlie, have you been tested for mycoplasma? Mycoplasma scavenge fats from the myelin sheath covering nerve tissue according to Dr. Rawls.

No, not specifically - but the antibiotic treatment for Mycoplasma should be covered with lyme treatment (macrolides/tetracyclines)

Also, I've never had any symptoms - sore throat/fatigue/cough/headaches

tickbite666 said...
I was put on Gabapentin by my PCP for shooting nerve pin at the start of my severe Lyme sx before starting treatment with an LLMD. I found it best to take a good dose at night before bedtime, which also helped my sleep better. Some folks get a real foggy hang-over effect and function poorly if taken during daytime.

I stopped taking it after 4 years or so when I started seeing sx improvements and preferred not to mask my remaining sx.

So, sounds like it helped you....if you stayed on it for 4 years.

Any trouble weaning off?

Traveler said...
I've been on Gabapentin a few times - sometimes it helps me and sometimes it doesn't.

It seems to be that many people do get at least some help from it, at least for a while. The only way to know though is to try it. I encourage you to talk to your doc to try it.

As for masking the symptoms, I never really had it mask my nerve pain, but it lowered it to tolerable levels. It wasn't hard to still tell that I had symptoms.

Each time I weaned myself down from it, I did something similar to Purrrsiankitty - only I stretched it out over a longer period of time - I went down about 1 pill a week until I was down to only 1 pill, then I cut that in half. If I found that going down by a full pill was too much, I cut the pill that I was trying to eliminate in half and only went down a half a pill at a time from there.

Even lowering it will be better than nothing.

Rikky1 said...
I started Neurontin and its definitely helping it doesn't eliminate the nerve pain but it is taking the edge off which is a big deal for me. Not even through one week of it yet I still have to titrate up.

My wife started it as well (100mg) the first dose she felt like everything was very heavy and a bit spaced out (not in a good way) but the second dose wasn't so bad so needed to get used to it. Hasn't helped her nerve issues yet but we'll see.

A while back I had questioned my GP about either Gabapentin or Lyrica...asking her if I could have it for an 'as needed' pain med...just to give me relief once in a while and she said no - it had to build in the blood stream.

So, it's probably not long enough yet for you and your wife, Rikky.

I was on 1200mg total per day. 300mg morning, 300mg afternoon, 600mg night. Doc said I could do more but this was the baseline dose. I tapered off a couple months back, I took gabapentin at this dose for about 8-9 months.

A little tip on weaning off gabapentin.....

One person, I met online who had acute onset SFN that started out of nowhere. His cause was never found and neurologists thought it was a rare case of molecular mimicry. Lucky for him, it was transient and he started to improve. He was on a large amount of gabapentin and he slowly weaned off of it.......much slower than he was told to do. He basically decreased the amount of gabapentin by 100 mg per week. It took him almost a year to get off of it. This is how you minimize withdrawal symptoms and minimize major upticks in paresthesias. Most doctors will have you go down 300 mg every 5 days. This is too fast in my opinion.

I think maybe that is an off-label use for it..

Maybe for pain it is too...

Wasn't it original for seizures? I'd have to look that up...

hey - if it helps with sleep - bonus!